This Can't Be Happening
by TrthIsOutThere
Summary: Set before/during IWTB. What happens when the FBI wants to bring its most UNwanted back into play? Pretty much everyone but our heroes, who make only minimal appearances. Not the best summary, just give it a chance lol
1. This Can't Be Happening

**Disclaimer: I do not own TXF.**

Title: This Can't Be Happening

Summary: Set before/during IWTB. What happens when the FBI wants to bring its most UNwanted back into play?

A/N: This actually came from reading a short piece from Diana Fowley's POV. I've wanted to do something like this for a long time. Besides every now and then, we have to let Mulder and Scully rest sometimes, right?

* * *

This was not happening.

He cautiously opened the file, impatiently eyeing the overeager young agent in front of him. She had barged into his office several moments before as a grueling, lengthy budget meeting was letting out, demanding to see him. His secretary was confused, remembering times prior when this had occurred on a daily basis. She stuttered when she tried to explain that Special Agent Dakota Whitney had not been able to wait.

This should not be happening.

He stared at the picture of the severed arm lying on the snow and fretted as he read through the case report. After receiving word that a newly recruited agent had disappeared from the intelligence analysis office in Winchester, Virginia, the case had landed on the desk of SAC Dakota Whitney of the Violent Crimes division in Washington, DC. The police report read simple. A psychic. A pedophile priest. An X File.

This could not be happening.

He had no longer been assigned as the Assistant Director of Criminal Investigations. After the debacle that had taken place six years before, everyone who was involved, except for the most guilty parties, had been granted clemency in a Bureau conduct hearing and been reassigned, never to work together again, at least for the Bureau. One retired, two others were reassigned as partners in the identity theft division, and he now sat behind a big desk as the Assistant Director of the Office of Professional Responsibility, under direct supervision of the Director of the FBI. What an ironic twist of fate, seeing as how he had frequented the wrong side of the panel he now sat on.

They had sworn to keep Fox Mulder and Dana Scully hidden from FBI radar, even fudging the background check process when Scully applied for work, and now in one brief moment, everything that Walter Skinner, Monica Reyes, John Doggett, and retired Deputy Director Alvin Kersh had been straining what remained of their professional reputation for was falling to pieces in one thin file that had an "X" designation adorning the front.

Skinner slapped the file shut and handed it back to Agent Whitney, shaking his head. "I'm sorry, what do you need me for again? I no longer work in the investigation division."

Her brown, doe eyes were unrelenting as she pushed a strand of errant hair behind her ear. Her file was clean; she was very much a do-gooder, a by-the-book type, which had allowed her to advance quickly. She didn't aim to please, she aimed for justice, despite knowing that the American system was anything but, and she worked hard, long hours to be one hundred percent certain she had the right person. Very rarely had anyone seen her stray from these straight and narrow paths and as she stared at Skinner across his desk, he saw that she was not leaving until she got what she came for. "I need him."

Skinner leaned back in his over-sized chair. "According to that police report, Father Joseph Crissman is in a self-patrolling compound for convicted sex offenders. You don't need my help to go question him."

She was getting frustrated. He could tell by the way her eyes narrowed slightly and the way she set her jaw. "We've questioned Father Joe."

"I'm missing the question here then."

"I want to bring Fox Mulder in for this case."

He bristled at the mention of Mulder's name and out of pure reflex he repeated a sentence that they had all committed to memory. "I don't work with Fox Mulder any longer." He was already standing to show her the door as she persisted.

"But you know how to contact him."

"I have not seen, nor heard from Fox Mulder, _or_ Dana Scully, in over six years," he was lying through his teeth, but it had been such a practiced reaction that they had all begun to believe the lies. Dakota Whitney was going to lose this round, he assured himself as he opened the door and ushered her out of his office.

She stopped in front of him, the same look of intensity in her eyes. "I've already cleared it with the Deputy Director. Fox Mulder will be aiding on this case."

"Well, I wish you luck in finding him," Skinner said gruffly. He watched as she walked briskly through the door, unhappy with her venture to the one source she thought she would have been able to crack. "A word of advice, Agent Whitney?" he called just before she exited his secretary's office. She spun on her heels to face him. "If you want one of them, you'll have to bring in the other. Individually, they are both phenomenal agents, but together, they're an unstoppable force of nature."

She nodded, though he doubted that she would heed his warning and this was confirmed when she stated simply, "It's not the skeptic opinion I need, sir, only the believer." With that she turned on her heels and made her exit. She would learn the hard way then.

Skinner glanced at his secretary knowingly and her brow creased with worry lines. Her hand hovered over the phone. "Should I get Agents Reyes and Doggett on the phone, sir?"

Skinner felt his shoulders cave as an uneasy weight settled on them. He shook his head. "No. I think I'm going to head out early today though." She nodded as he retreated back into his office and shut the door. Sinking down into his desk chair, he scrubbed his face with his hands.

This was going to happen.

* * *

So...review and let me know what you thought about it. Should I continue, or leave it as a one-shot?


	2. Scully, Dana K

A/N: I wrote this before I went to class this morning and edited it when I got home, then quickly posted. Thanks for everyone that added this as an alert! I apologize if this is weak, or has some grammar mistakes.

* * *

Dakota Whitney exited the Assistant Director's office fuming. She had thought for certain, he would have given Mulder the chance to come out of hiding and indulge in his life's work. She flipped open the file again as she made her way to the bullpen three floors below. When they had brought Father Joe in for questioning, they had locked him in an interrogation room. They had no reason not to suspect their so-called "informant" when he claimed that his visions came from God. Barely six hours had passed after Agent Monica Bannon had been reported missing before Father Joe called reporting he knew where their missing agent was. Either he was a very stupid murderer, or a very intelligent one.

Either way, time had been ticking then, and time was continuing to tick now, and Fox Mulder was the only man that would be able to solve this case.

Father Joe had been indicted with gross sexual imposition charges after getting caught sodomizing thirty-seven of his altar boys. It made no sense that he would suddenly decide to change his _modus operandi_, much less that he committed a murder in a place he claims to have never been to before. If she had learned one thing about profiling, the offender normally committed a crime in a place he is somewhat familiar with…

Unless he was working _with_ the killer…the unassuming ex-priest, searching for clemency with the Church and all those he's hurt, phoning in and leading a prank recovery…only to weed out other unsuspecting female agents like herself, other possible victims for the _real_ killer. The possibility of this scenario caused Agent Whitney to feel sick; it was not at all impossible and not completely unfathomable. Father Joe lived in a compound full of convicted sex offenders and recidivism is not an unheard of concept. Even addicts, sober thirty years, can relapse. The meaning of partners in crime had never been so eerie and a chill ran down her spine at the thought of two minds working so cohesively together on such a grotesque project.

Partners.

She stopped dead in the hallway. _If you want one of them, you'll have to bring in the other…_ She spun quickly around heading back toward the office of human resources. Agents Reyes and Doggett had remained even more tight-lipped than Skinner had, even being bold enough to claim they could not remember ever working with Fox Mulder. She cursed as she scanned back through their personnel files, realizing that was technically the truth. They had caught her off guard with semantics in their sly answer. Agent Reyes and Agent Doggett, while being assigned to the "X" files division, had never worked with Mulder in an official capacity. That left one available source, which may have been just as hard to track down as he was.

"What can I do for you?" the woman at the Personnel Records front desk asked.

"I need to pull an old personnel file."

"Name?"

"Special Agent Dana Katherine Scully."

Just like with any other fugitive, it was time to strike a deal.


	3. Identity Theft

**I don't own TXF.**

A/N: Well, I had hoped to have this up like...a week and a half ago. And then my cousin got attacked by a dog and the emergency room made an epic fail by stitching up the bites. Ridiculous. Anyways. Reviews are still welcome, as always.

* * *

Agent Monica Reyes had thrown herself into her work whole-heartedly initially.

After receiving pardon from the Federal Bureau of Investigation on aiding and abetting charges, she would have taken _any_ assignment, anywhere in the world, just grateful for the fact they had not had her name black-listed. But the days of monotony turned to long weeks and then to boring years. The work was so _mundane_ and _unvarying _that she wanted to pull her hair out at the end of the day. Every day. And that made it difficult to pretend to love her job anymore.

She just had to remind herself that there was always an assignment worse than this.

Glancing up, she saw her partner sitting in his chair rigidly, his position unchanged from the last time she had stolen a glance at him from behind her computer monitor. John Doggett's spine had been replaced by a steel pole, but he tried incredibly hard to look relaxed by casually crossing his ankles beneath his desk and leaning stiffly back in his chair with his fingers laced behind his head. Try as he might to pass off the façade of nonchalance, Monica knew better, especially after their brief visit from an SAC in Criminal Investigations earlier that day.

When she had arrived that morning, his spirits had been higher. He had barely been in the bullpen for twenty minutes, but his jacket had been hung on the back of his chair and his shirt sleeves rolled back above his elbows. As she was putting the finishing touches on a report from a case they had wrapped up the day before, he was leaning against her desk, smiling and joking with her. She knew that this was his apology for fighting with her for the duration of their most recent case, the admittance that he had been wrong. Eventually they settled in for a long day of fraud claims and illegal purchases on billing statements, but this routine was interrupted later that morning when Dakota Whitney showed up in their workspace unannounced.

John had noticed her first. The tall brunette was out of place in identity theft; identity theft agents were always haphazardly put together because the majority of their work was done from behind a desk and over the phone, but they were still dressed properly to run out and meet with their case subject if they needed to. They tended to get lazy quickly as they started to forget their Quantico training. But this woman was different. Her appearance was well-kept, but she was rushed, her movements frantic, as if every minute slipped away from her like grains of sand through her fingers, yet she had skillfully masked it with a carefully crafted façade. Someone would think her life depended on haste. Either she worked in Crimes Against Children or some other violent, time-dependant crime unit. She worked and looked like John and Monica. That training sticks with a person their entire life.

"Hey, Mon?" John's voice was barely a whisper. "Look."

The tone in his voice forced her eyes to look around her monitor at what he was pointing at. "What do you think she wants?"

He shrugged and they both watched as the stranger's deliberate footsteps brought her straight to John's desk. He spun his chair to face her, all joking washing away. He knew that look on her face. The agent had not slept in more than twenty-four hours.

"Agents Doggett and Reyes?"

They exchanged glances before giving her their full attention.

"Have we met?" Monica asked, attempting politeness.

"I'm SAC Dakota Whitney, VCU. I have a team looking into the disappearance of an agent from our satellite office in Winchester."

John and Monica exchanged glances again. Missing persons was way out of their purview.

"Forgive me for being blunt," she said, dropping a manila file on John's desk, a red case number emblazoning the front. It was that damn "X" that preceded it that caused both of them to stiffen in their seats. "But we have reason to believe you can put us in contact with the expert on these case types."

John shook his head and picked the file up without opening it and handed it back to her. "We've been strictly instructed to keep away from the X-files, Agent Whitney."

"Your work on the X-files provided you with the opportunity to work closely with Fox Mulder," she pushed. "I need him on this case."

Monica and John immediately heard the whispers break out in the bullpen. A quiet snicker hissed from across the room after someone mentioned E.T. Monica frowned seeing that Mulder's reputation still hung thickly in the air at the Hoover Building. Agents still whispered unkind words of "Spooky" Mulder and his crusade against alien invasions and these words followed Monica and John through the hallways. The FBI hadn't forgiven, or forgotten, Mulder's bogus charges. Monica knew that they would hold that grudge until every last individual responsible for Mulder and Scully's hasty and indefinite exodus was either retired or dead. Nor would they forget that Monica and John were ambiguously involved. Fortunately, the lines of their acquaintance had been smudged enough that people would never find an official record of any work they had done together.

"We never worked on the X-files with Agent Mulder," Monica said. "By the time that either of us was assigned to that division, Agent Mulder was gone."

Whitney pursed her lips, ready to call them on their rehearsed dogma. "Six years ago…"

"You can't prove that," John warned quickly, wondering how she had heard about the charges they had received for their part in getting Mulder out of the Marine prison compound in Quantico. The files that did exist were classified far above her clearance level. The FBI, FEMA, and Marine Corps had not even made a paper copy of those files and kept them stored on a server that exceeded her Top Secret clearance level. Shut her up and shut her down while she's ahead, he told himself. "We've never worked with Fox Mulder," he repeated, trying to bring the conversation away from those career ruining charges. "We worked with Agent Scully."

"And we haven't even spoken to her since she herself was charged for aiding Agent Mulder escape his death sentence six years ago," Monica added.

"I just need to know how to contact him," Whitney said.

"I'm sorry," Monica said quickly, listening to the continuing whispers. "We can't help you."

"Well, who can then?"

John and Monica only stared at her. The message was clear: she wasn't getting anything else from them. She had spooked them with this taboo subject; she could see it in their eyes. They were not going to give her any information.

"We're sorry," John repeated, motioning to his nearly empty desk. "We have a lot of work to do."

Agent Whitney paused, pursing her lips. A neutral look slid across her face before she turned on her heels and made her way out of the bullpen as quickly as she had come in. The eyes of the agents in the room followed her on the way out. Only a person as crazy as Fox "Spooky" Mulder himself would want his help on a case.

Monica knew that the visit had left an impression on John and he was still puzzling over it two hours later. She wouldn't deny that she was not suspicious of Dakota Whitney's request, but she hadn't let it consume her either. Leaning forward, she said his name quietly. When he didn't respond, she tried again several more times before wadding up a sheet of paper from a notepad and throwing it at the back of his head. He jerked reflexively and turned to glare at her, but a familiar figure paused at the entrance of the bullpen. She nodded toward the man and John turned to look at what she was motioning to. Walter Skinner nodded, barely hesitating, before continuing down the hall.

Ten minutes later, John and Monica had made their way out of the Hoover Building and were walking quickly through the bitter cold wind toward the World War II Memorial on the National Mall. The sound of the fountains echoed against the stone walls as they stepped into the northern granite arch of the memorial. At this time of the year, tourists rarely toured through the memorial during the middle of the week, leaving only one man standing in the memorial, staring out at the fountain in the center, wrapped tightly against the cold in a long black wool trench. He turned to face them as the sound of Monica's heels clicking across the granite alerted him to their arrival.

"Did she come to see you too?" John asked, not wasting a minute with formalities.

Skinner nodded. "What did you tell her?"

"The truth to an extent," Monica said. "We told her that we had never worked with Mulder."

"Do you think it's a trap for Mulder and Scully?" John asked, voicing the question he had been wondering all morning.

Skinner shook his head. "I've looked into it. This case is your standard-issue X-file. A convicted, pedophile priest who claims to have psychic visions of the missing agent. It has Mulder's name all over it."

"What about Whitney?" John persisted.

"She checks out," Skinner said. "She went through Quantico with the missing agent."

"What do we do about her?" John asked, earning a worried glance from his partner.

"We can't do anything," Skinner said, his eyes shifting between them. "We're not supposed to be in contact. With each other or with them." He paused. "We can only keep an open ear. If anything seems out of place, then we can decide our next move."

"What if it's too late by that time?" Monica asked quietly.

"Our hands are tied, Agent Reyes," Skinner's voice held an uncharacteristic harshness, causing her to shrink further into her coat. "Right now, there's an apparent connection between a missing Bureau agent, a priest, and a severed arm and Whitney knows that Mulder is the only person with a mind that can tie them together. I know waiting around is not ideal, but it's all we can do. We have to assume the best, but for right now, they're on their own."


	4. Mosley Drummy

A/N: Wow! Two days in a row. That does not normally happen...haha. I realized as I was writing this that Dakota Whitney is written as an ASAC in IWTB…whatever. That random SAC Fossa character near the end is a lost cause lol. It makes more sense this way. SAC is a title given to the agent in charge of the operation. I'm pretty sure that's Whitney. Agent Drummy technically falls into the ASAC position. They both treat it like it's solely their case.

A/N 2: Though I'm still only a criminal justice student, we're assigned projects to solve practice cases. I've lost sleep over them before because my brain can't let them go. There's your inspiration for Drummy later on.

* * *

Dakota Whitney's normally brisk pace had hastened to a near sprint by the time she had finished skimming through Dana Scully's file. She stepped into the conference room that had been given to her team and served as a central locus for their operation. Her eyes quickly scanned the faces of all the agents bent over files and maps at the table, looking for the Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the operation.

Special Agent Mosley Drummy stuck to the rulebook more than any agent Whitney had ever met and the moment she declared that she wanted to seek pardon for and bring Mulder in for this case, he became irritatingly difficult to work with. She had been partnered with him since her assignment to the Hoover Building and had been able to guess that he would be against bringing in Fox Mulder, but she hadn't expected exactly how much tension it would bring to their partnership.

Drummy had gone through Quantico, reading Mulder's monograph, believing that he could be just as great an agent as Mulder. By the time he made it to his assignment in Washington, he was disheartened to find that Fox Mulder was the joke of the Bureau, any reputation he had possessed at one time completely squandered. His record of misconduct was like a multi-volume encyclopedia, leaving him no better than the scum VCU shut down and arrested on a daily basis. How could the Bureau allow such a troublemaker to continue using their resources for his own selfish crusade? To find his _dead _sister, no less.

It was only four months after Drummy began his D.C. assignment that Mulder disappeared somewhere in the Pacific Northwest, right out from under the nose of Assistant Director Walter Skinner. Barely five months after that, his single partner, whose actions and motives were just as questionable as his, began to show as her stomach grew larger from her supposedly "impossible" pregnancy, solidifying any ideas that she and Mulder had been sleeping together. She hid in the basement with her new partner, John Doggett, and the two of them spoke in hushed conspiratorial tones behind closed doors with A.D. Skinner. Mulder was the glue between these three people; it was no secret that A.D. Skinner was assisting the X-files division's search to find him, leaving several questioning and embittered agents like Mosley Drummy to distrust anyone who had ever been involved with the X-files.

Needless to say, when Dakota Whitney had suggested bringing him in, Drummy had pulled Mulder's file to fill in the holes of his knowledge and bring every skeleton out from within Mulder's closet, and laid them on the table in front of her. Fox Mulder was a quack, and had no right to be caught in the direct center of what was blatantly becoming an X-file. "The dogs hear the bell and they start salivating, Dakota," he had told her. "Mulder sees an X-file and bites at the bit, knowing that he's within reach of FBI resources to pillage for his own personal use."

Whitney had shaken her head. "I think you have him all wrong. We need Mulder's insight on this case and you know that he's the best." She had pointed to his page of notes he had prepared and her bleary eyes were dead serious. "Even with all these mess-ups, Fox Mulder solved cases with an uncanny ability to get into the head of the suspects he was investigating and draw conclusions from several unrelated facts. We need him."

That had been in the wee hours of the morning, and the last time they had spoken.

Whitney spotted him poring over another case file near the back of the room and called him out. When he looked up, she motioned with her head for him to join her in the hallway, out of earshot of the other agents in the room.

"Have you given up on this insanity yet?" he asked, reaching for the file she held out to him. "People are starting to talk about you. They're wondering if you've lost your integrity."

She pulled the file out of his reach, a warning flashing through her eyes. "This is my case, Mose. The next time the A.D. hands the file directly to you, you're in charge, but for this case we're doing it _my_ way." She handed him the file and folded her arms across her chest. "I have a feeling about him."

Drummy glanced up, quirking a dubious eyebrow, before his eyes slid back down to the file in his hands. "You're getting as delusional as Father Joe," he muttered, skimming through the file and knowing that he had earned a small smirk. _Scully, Dana Katherine…February 23, 1964...formally discharged from the Federal Bureau of Investigation on federal charges of aiding and abetting convicted fugitive, Fox Mulder…_ "What did you get this out for?"

"Look at her follow up information," Whitney said. "There's been one addendum since 2002. She had been granted partial pardon in a highly classified appeal to OPR after receiving a bad conduct discharge in a military court. She refused to appear in person."

"Why would she do that? Who stood in for her?"

"Special Agents Monica Reyes and John Doggett. In fact, the appeal only mentioned her charges. It wasn't even filed by her."

"Are you supposed to know all of this stuff?"

Whitney shrugged. "It was in her file. I'll give you one guess who was sitting on the panel for her appeal..."

Drummy massaged his temples with his free hand. "What was the partial pardon for?"

"So she could obtain a job," Whitney paused, hoping that Drummy was seeing where she was going. Even after four years of partnership, he still had trouble understanding her logic at times.

"She's the last source we have, I'm guessing."

Whitney nodded. "We'll offer her a deal and in return we'll get Mulder."

"What's the deal?" he asked, stuffing his hands in his pockets.

"I'm leaving that up to you," she said, taking the file from his hand. "Take a nap and by the time you wake up I'll have the address of her employer."

Drummy's eyes softened. "Are you ever going to sleep?"

She was already making her way back into the conference room. "I'll get my turn eventually," she said as she disappeared into the room, signaling that their conversation was over.

* * *

Drummy was awakened several hours later by his phone ringing. His sleep had not been entirely restful, but he had learned to function on minimal sleep. His brain was overworking on this case, trying to put the strange and seemingly unrelated pieces together. He would wake up periodically and scribble down notes on a legal pad by his bed before attempting to go back to sleep again. When his phone finally rang, he squinted at his clock when he saw that the sun had fallen far below the horizon. Dakota had allowed him enough time for a full night's sleep.

"Drummy," he mumbled.

"_Mose, I have Scully's employer_," Whitney said softly. "_She's not scheduled until tomorrow. There's a board meeting at eight that she is required to attend._"

Drummy rubbed his face. "If you tell me it's a conduct meeting, I may just have to laugh."

He was rewarded with a short chuckle from the other end of the line. "_It's not a conduct meeting. Though I did get the idea that she's not in any favor with the hospital's administration. I spoke to her boss; a Father Ybarra…his tone was less than impressed._"

"Surprise, surprise," Drummy said, dryly.

There was a pause from Whitney. "_There's nothing else that we can do tonight._" The statement hung in the air between them for almost too long.

"We'll find her, Dakota. There's still time."

"_Yeah_," she whispered, but her tone indicated anything but faith in his optimism.

"Try and get some sleep, okay? We'll pick this up tomorrow morning."

"_I've been home for a few hours now,_" she said. Drummy could hear the smile in her voice and he snorted softly. "_I just woke up before I called you because I realized I had forgotten._"

"What time are you going back in?"

"_I was thinking around four._"

Drummy glanced at his clock. It read close to twelve. At least she was allowing herself a decent amount of sleep. "Okay. See you then. Night, Dakota."

"_Night, Mosley…_"

* * *

I don't think Agent Drummy isn't all that bad, he's just a real pain in the ass during the movie...haha Review please!


	5. Our Lady of Sorrows

Disclaimer: same.

A/N: I'm ironing out the wrinkles for the next chapter, and I have a lot of ideas for it. Up next is the Deal. As always, thanks to those that have added this as an alert and reviewed. Please continue!

* * *

Whitney had sent Drummy to the motor pool around seven that morning, instructing him to take two more agents with him on his trip. With the address of Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic Hospital in hand, he checked out a Bureau-owned Excursion and made the nearly two-hour drive from Washington to Martinsburg, West Virginia. When they finally pulled up in front of the hospital around nine, the sky had clouded over promising a new round of snow to add to the two feet already blanketing the area around them. Drummy parked the car and stared through windshield at the giant brick facility looming gloomily in front of him.

"This place looks like a prison," he mumbled.

"I grew up down the road from here," Special Agent Jack Leigh said in his thick southern accent from the back seat. "I think I read somewhere that it was built before 1900."

"Well, it looks like some nut house out of a horror movie."

"I think it may have started off as one, if I remember correctly."

Drummy shook his head. "Unbelievable. I'm sure she feels right at home then."

Agent Leigh and Special Agent Scott Slaven chuckled at his crack at Mulder as they all climbed out of the car. Their dark, pressed suits and long trench coats stood out in stark contrast to the white snow and ruffled appearance of the other hospital visitors, earning them several uncomfortable glances as they entered the building, telling them that they didn't belong there. Drummy brushed it off and led the way to the information desk, extracting his ID from deep within his coat pockets. He flashed the badge to the nurse at the counter.

"Good morning," the nurse said softly, her brow furrowing curiously. The other nurses and doctors around them paused to glance over at the dark G-men interrupting their daily routines.

"I'm Agent Drummy," he said, tucking his badge back in his pocket. "This is Agent Leigh and Agent Slaven. We're with the FBI."

"How may I help you?"

"We're looking for Doctor Dana Scully," Drummy said. The sentence hung in the air as the nurse at the counter exchanged a shifty glance with the doctor standing beside Drummy.

The doctor, a tall, wiry man with thinning brown hair and a thick Hungarian mustache, stepped forward. "Doctor Scully is in a board meeting concerning one of her patients right now. If you need to…"

Drummy regarded the other man coolly. "We'll wait then."

"Is she in some sort of trouble?" the doctor asked.

"I'm afraid the particulars of our case are classified as need to know, Doctor," Agent Slaven said.

"We'll need a place where we can…discuss our issue with her," Agent Leigh added.

The doctor stiffened as his gaze shifted to the nurses behind the counter and back to the agents' faces. Drummy narrowed his eyes at this second silent exchange between the hospital staff. He had seen that look before and knew his presence at Our Lady of Sorrows confirmed the gossip; there _was _something that Doctor Scully had been hiding. "Follow me," he said, as his moustache twitched nervously.

The trio of agents followed the doctor down a length of hallway and up a wide set of stairs. Drummy warily eyed the stained glass window depicting the Virgin Mary on the mezzanine between the stairs as they passed. On a second glance, he hesitated briefly, recalling the file the Bureau held on Dana Scully. The attached file photo wasn't recent, it was at least seven years old, but that didn't change anything. Drummy stared up at the window, noting the soft blues of Mary's robes, but it was the flowing red hair falling out from beneath the keffiyeh that stopped him. The hair created an uncanny resemblance between Dana Scully and the stained-glass window that he couldn't ignore, causing an odd, inexplicable sensation to crawl across his skin.

Slaven was suddenly at his side. "You alright, Mose?"

Drummy nodded and continued forward, brushing the other agent off. "We're out of here as soon as we break this deal."


	6. I Can't Help You

A/N: Sorry this took so long. I had been waiting for time that I could analyze the scene where Drummy meets Scully in the hospital. Finally got the time, and this is what I got from it. Hope it's up to par!

* * *

The person that finally met Agent Drummy and his fellow agents looked nothing like the personnel photo they had each committed to memory. Instead they were met by a priest with gangly limbs and cropped brown hair. His clothes were cleanly pressed and he exuded haughty authority in his quick, long strides.

"I'm Father Ybarra," he said softly. "I was told you were looking for Doctor Scully."

Drummy nodded. "We have reason to believe that she can help us with our current case."

"In what capacity?" Father Ybarra was immediately defensive. "I'm fairly certain that whatever agency you're with has their own forensic pathologists."

"This has nothing to do with Doctor Scully's area of medical expertise," Drummy assured him. "You're aware of her criminal record?"

Father Ybarra stiffened visibly and pursed his lips, thinking long and hard about how to respond to this question. He nodded slowly. "Doctor Scully wouldn't be my…first choice of doctors, but she came with excellent references. She was pardoned by the military and the government for her past…transgressions."

Drummy smirked. "You made an exception?"

Father Ybarra frowned, trying to hide embarrassment. "We have a list of stipulations she is to follow." He paused and his frown deepened. "Is there anything I can help you with, Mister…?"

"Drummy, Agent Drummy. Our only business is with Doctor Scully, Father."

Ybarra nodded and turned slightly toward the door. "Follow me then."

Drummy followed the priest through the cramped hallways of the hospital. Ybarra led him up another smaller staircase and pushed a heavy door open under a sign that read, "Pediatrics." Drummy quirked an eyebrow at the sign and silently continued, eyeing the bright paint on the lobby walls and the uneasy looks the staff continued to give him. The priest stopped and motioned down the hall, where a doctor with unmistakable hair color was speaking to a small family. Drummy paused for a moment, watching. Her head cocked to the side as she spoke to the boy in his wheelchair, her posture open and warm, but as soon as the father asked a question, her spine stiffened and she closed in on herself. Drummy strode forward and he heard her say something about doing more tests. The boy's father stared at him, causing her to turn around.

"Dana Scully?"

A quick one-over of his suit and tie told her all she needed to know about him. Her blue eyes and red hair stood out in stark contrast against the depressing and tired walls around her, but it was the gaze that she held in her eyes was what threw him off. It was only the briefest of glances, but it held a certain venom that sent a shudder down his spine. That look alone told him that whatever he had to say would be a near futile exchange between lifelong foes. He was in her territory now and he was going to have to play by her rules. She would fight tooth and nail for all that she cared for in her life. That included Fox Mulder.

Drummy only allowed a brief moment to pass before he bull-headedly charged into his sole purpose for being there. "Dr. Scully, I'm looking for Fox Mulder." His words hung in the air awkwardly as she turned and excused herself away from her patient's distressed family. As she turned and walked toward him, her eyes wandered up and down his body, mentally taking into account his stature, body mass, and cataloguing all possible locations for hidden weapons. He had seen that look before many times from other agents, but it had been discreet. Hers was a practiced ritual that he had found more common amongst the people he was arresting. She was letting him know that he was out of place and that she was confident that she could take him if she had to. It sent another wave of fear coursing down his spine. Maybe if she would only take her hand out of her pocket, he would feel much better. "Special Agent Drummy with the FBI." His voice was more confident than he felt.

"I can guess who you're with," she said cutting off the last letter. Her eyes averted his as she said this and she glanced around to see who had heard. Apparently, his presence had already attracted more attention than she would like, her gaze telling Drummy that Mulder's paranoia had rubbed off on her over the last six years. She didn't trust the FBI. She didn't trust _anyone_.

"The FBI urgently needs to speak with Fox Mulder," he pressed.

Her eyes remained hard as they found their way back to his. "I don't work with Fox Mulder any longer," she said. "I don't work with the FBI." She was trying to shut him down.

Drummy expected this. He pursed his lips and tried to suppress an annoyed expression. Dakota had told him that she had received similar furtive remarks from A.D. Skinner and Agents Doggett and Reyes. Why were they all denying a direct connection to this man? Why were they trying to hide Fox Mulder? "Well, if you could contact him," he suggested, his voice raising a few decibels. He had caught her attention with his blatant annoyance. "It might just save the life of an FBI agent." There was a minute change in her eyes, the tiniest glimmer of sympathy. Maybe he _could_ shake her down, maybe coax some sort of a deal out of her.

The glimmer faded a moment later and, with it, Drummy's hope for a deal. She shook her head. "I'm sorry. I can't help you." She flipped open the file in her hand to signal their conversation had ended. "He is no longer a part of my life, and I am no longer a part of his," she said, brushing past him in the cramped hallway.

Drummy's teeth ground together as he spun on his heels to catch up with her. He grabbed her elbow and squeezed the nerve at the top of her ulna. She gasped and her shoulder dropped as she gave with the pain his thumb was creating. The application of pressure on that particular point had merely been to get her attention and he released quickly. Her eyes narrowed and her fists balled tightly. "Excuse me," was all she said. "I have patients to tend to." She was willing to over look the small incident in the hallway if he just leave her alone and continue on his way. Drummy made no effort to reason with her and she frowned disapprovingly before continuing down the hall, running into Agent Slaven's shoulder as she passed him and Leigh. They paused, their eyes following her, and then turned to Drummy in confusion.

Leigh motioned to the petite red-head as she disappeared around a corner. "Did you get what we needed from her?"

Drummy shook her head.

"Is she willing to make any deal?" Slaven asked.

He shook his head again.

"Well, did you get _anything_?" Slaven asked impatiently.

Drummy met his gaze coolly. "She doesn't work with Fox Mulder any longer," he sneered, mocking Dr. Scully and pulled out his phone and punching the one number he had on speed dial. When the other end picked up all he said was, "This might take longer than we hoped."


	7. Deal

A/N: Hmm...I hope this is up to par with the rest! Enjoy!

* * *

"_This might take longer than we hoped._"

Dakota Whitney's attention was fully on the conversation, the change in her demeanor enough to gain attention from the other agents in the room. Her fist flew to her hip and she stood up straight, forgetting the file on the table in front of her. "What do you mean?" she asked coolly.

"_The good doctor gave me the cold shoulder, what else would it mean_? _She wants nothing to do with us._"

Dakota took several steps away from the table and her voice lowered menacingly. "Agent Drummy. You go find our informant and get the information we need from her _by whatever means it takes._ Am I understood?"

Drummy was silent for several seconds. She could see him brooding on the other end of the line. "_Understood_." The line went silent immediately as he cut their conversation short. Dakota groaned and flicked her wrist, sending her phone smashing into the nearest wall.

"I want someone back out at our missing agent's residence and going over the snow tracks. Someone else needs to question the last few people that witnessed her alive…"

She was cut off by an interning grad student. "Agent Whitney, I don't mean to sound presumptuous, but we've exhausted those resources."

Dakota liked the kid, she really did. He was well-meaning and worked harder than some of the agents on the task force. That didn't mean that she didn't find him out of line with his statement. "Just figure out what happened to our agent!" she snapped, before turning and stalking out of the room. Drummy would get Scully to talk. He _had _to get Scully to talk. They were running out of time.

* * *

Drummy pocketed his phone and motioned after Scully. "Go find her. Figure out something to charge her with."

Slaven met his gaze incredulously. "You're joking right?" he asked flatly.

"We have to get her to talk."

"She's going to see right through that, Mose," Leigh said. "She used to work for the Bureau. She's not the everyday Ignorant Joe."

"Then make it realistic," Drummy said, shaking his head in annoyance. "SAC Whitney is holding a flame under my ass. We have to get something from her."

When they found Scully, she was entering an office, her name adorning the door. Drummy and the other two agents cornered her in the office. The only way out was through the windows. They knew she wasn't that desperate.

"Dr. Scully, you're under arrest," Drummy said.

"Am I?" she asked. "I haven't done anything wrong."

"You're inhibiting a federal investigation," Drummy said. "There are laws against that."

Scully stood ramrod straight behind her desk, eyeing them evenly before skimming through the medical charts on her desk. "I cooperated. I have done nothing to inhibit this investigation."

Drummy strode forward and stopped dangerously close, forcing her to freeze as every single muscle in her body tensed. His voice was low and gravelly as he spoke. "We know that you are still in contact with Mulder. I know I don't have to remind you, _Agent _Scully, that the Federal Bureau of Investigation treats their agents as members of one giant family. When one goes missing, the rest use exhaustive measures to find them. You have witnessed this first hand. They won't give up." Drummy could see her fingers trembling as he hinted at her own abduction and pressed on. "At one point in time, this was you."

"Stop," she said quietly.

"It could have been A.D. Skinner," he continued. "Reyes, Doggett…"

"Stop," she croaked, her lower lip trembling.

"It could have even been Muh –"

"Stop," she repeated firmly. She turned to him. "I've already told you I can't help you."

"We have reason to believe otherwise," Slaven said and her eyes shifted to him briefly.

"We're here to make a deal, Agent Scully," Leigh said. "One that would benefit you and your former partner."

Scully was silent for several long moments as she studied each of the faces in the room. Eventually, her eyes softened and she busied herself by stacking the medical charts on her desk in a neat pile. Several more long moments passed before she leaned on the desk with one hand, the other landing on her hip, and her eyes become hard again. "First off, it's _Doctor_ Scully, Agent Drummy. Secondly, I've already received pardon for my charges and dishonorable discharge from duty. If I _could_ contact Mulder, I highly doubt there's anything you could do for him."

"We'll try," Drummy assured her. "This is why we need Mulder." He pulled a folded, limited dossier from within his coat that held details of their psychic. She took it from his hands and skimmed through it.

When she reached the second page, one eyebrow shot up on her forehead and she pushed the dossier back at Drummy, shaking her head. "No," she said. "Not for this. I _will not_ help you find him for that." She picked up the medical charts on her desk and tried to make her way past the agents back to the safety of her patients. Slaven and Leigh blocked her exit and she glared at them. "I suggested you allow me to pass."

"I'm afraid we can't do that," Leigh said. "We're not allowed to go back to D.C. without knowing how to contact Fox Mulder."

"Then I'm afraid you're out of luck. I can't help you."

Drummy nodded and the other two stepped forward with apologetic eyes. Suddenly, medical charts slid to the floor as Slaven and Leigh each took one of her arms and pinned her against the desk. Drummy took her wrists and twisted her palms outward, clamping the handcuffs down around her wrists.

"Does my right to silence apply?" Scully asked wryly.

Drummy jerked her up to a full standing position. "You're funny, Scully. Now I see why Mulder kept you around for so long." He grabbed her upper arm and tugged her down to the room that the hospital had provided them. The public humiliation was just another method to break her down. Slaven pulled a chair out and Drummy and Leigh pushed her into it roughly. Leigh exited the room and pulled the door shut behind him. Slaven posted himself next to the door and Drummy sat across the table from Scully.

"Why should I tell you anything?" Scully asked softly.

Drummy leaned forward. "This is an agent's life we're talking about."

"How long have they been missing?"

"I'm not discussing particulars about the case, it's need-to-know," Drummy said.

"People go missing sometimes, Drummy," she said evenly. "I've been missing for the last six years, haven't I?" Her face broke into a genuine smile and she shook her head, leaning forward. "That wasn't good enough, try again."

"This is an X-file," Drummy said simply. He paused as he considered the pain his next statement would cause him. "Mulder…Mulder's the best."

Scully leaned back and the handcuffs clinked together as she shifted, uncomfortable. Drummy could see her starting to shut down. Something in his last comment had forced another wall between them. "He may have been the best," she said slowly, calculatingly. She nodded in agreement, but her eyes were far off. "That was a long time ago. That was in another lifetime."

"Six years can hardly be called a lifetime, Agent Scully."

Her eyes snapped back to his face, but were filled with a heart-wrenching sadness. "Six years," she repeated quietly. "For some, six years _is_ a lifetime, Agent Drummy."

"For some," Drummy acknowledged quietly. "For Mulder? What about for you?"

Scully met his gaze with tired eyes. "Of course. For both of us. Six years ago, I had a great job, a nice apartment in an expensive neighborhood, and I saw my mother regularly. A lot can happen in six years when your only company is an absconding fugitive."

There. The admittance he had been waiting for. "Then why don't you make this deal?" Drummy asked, his voice becoming sterner.

She leaned forward, her calm demeanor cracking slightly as her voice rose slightly in annoyance. "Making this deal will not replace the most important things that he and I have lost."

"Dana, the FBI is willing to…"

"I don't _trust _the FBI," she said bitterly. "And neither does Mulder. I would not only be betraying him, but all that he's worked for in the last twenty years of his life." She paused. "What can you offer us that would even make me consider this deal?"

"What will it take?"

Scully eyed him curiously at length, carefully considering her next words. "Full clemency. I want you to guarantee that after this case, Mulder will not be taken into custody and marched directly down to the nearest federal prison's death chamber."

That was the reason why they had all vehemently denied knowing where Mulder was. "What about you?"

She snorted quietly. "I don't need anything. I can go out in public, I have a job…what I want can't be given to me," she said, shaking her head. "It's far too complicated. Allow me my current degree of freedom. Letting Mulder off is enough for me." She eyed Drummy carefully again, always calculating him. "I want it in writing and signed by the director."

"You're joking, right?" Slaven asked, finally breaking his silence.

"We were told at any cost, Agent Slaven," Drummy said, turning on the other agent. "Find a computer and draft up this deal."

Slaven exited the room without further argument, albeit begrudgingly, and returned several moments later with a laptop. They spent the next several minutes drafting up the agreement, with Scully wording it exactly as she pleased. She was afraid something would be left out and their agreement would become void. Drummy immediately phoned his partner and explained what had happened. She asked him to send the agreement through email and they would have a signature within the hour.

"That was simple enough, wasn't it?" Drummy asked.

Scully looked like she wanted to laugh, long and hard. "Right…" she said, snorting softly. "I just made the deal…I haven't convinced Mulder yet."

* * *

"_It's done,_" Mosley said.

Dakota Whitney snapped her phone shut, smirking. Finally, they were getting somewhere.


	8. The Bullpen

A/N: Well, this only took forever...lol. It's short, but hopefully I can grind out the next chapter as well in the next little while. It's the last week of classes, so I'll be able to just chill out pretty soon and work on this and anything else I haven't updated in...months.

* * *

"Hey, Chuck, you know that missing agent from West Virginia?" the low conspiratorial question floated across the room.

"Yeah, Whitney find her yet?" Chuck asked.

"I don't think so," the other man said, traces of excitement filling his whisper. "Guess who I saw in the hall outside of their command room last night. You'll never believe it."

"Has the director taken sudden special interest in this case?"

Chuck's friend shook his balding head quickly, hardly able to contain himself. "_Spooky Mulder_! Can you believe it!"

Up until this point, Monica had been ignoring the conversation. Gossip flew through the bullpen faster than any other section of the Hoover building. Someone was always seeing something scandalous that they had to tell their partner about and someone else always overheard it. If only they hadn't been packed into the room like sardines… It took the syllables of Mulder's name to give Monica pause in her current work. Her eyes rose slowly and she turned in her chair toward the conversation taking place behind her.

"Spooky? No way," Chuck said, shaking his head, "You're full of shit. He's evading a life sentence or dead or something. He wouldn't step foot back in this building for anything."

Monica finally identified the older man leaning over Chuck's desk as his partner, Peter. Both had been around long enough to remember the legacy Mulder and Scully had left behind. While Peter wasn't known for bringing many strains of gossip into the bullpen, he certainly did nothing to stop them. He was only willing to be the source of some of the most shocking gossip. Monica rolled her eyes. _What a goal to live for day to day_. She snatched her coffee mug off of the corner of her desk and walked toward the back of the room slowly, listening as she passed closer to Chuck and Peter.

"No," Peter said, shaking his head. "He was here, Chuck. And so was his 'Mrs. Spooky' partner. The red head. I'll tell you what, I've never seen her so on edge before. She looked ready to spring at anyone who breathed on Mulder wrong."

Monica poured her coffee and struggled to suppress the laugh building up in her gut.

"You sure it was them?" Chuck said, still playing the role of the skeptic.

"Positive," Peter smirked. "He looked like the Unabomber." Chuck finally laughed.

Monica stepped to the side to begin adding in her condiments and felt someone brush up against her arm. She looked over into John's pale blue eyes. "Mornin'," he said, with a smile. "What's the word in the gossip chain this morning?" he asked, motioning with his head to where Chuck and Peter were sharing a laugh.

She shook her head and waved it away. "Apparently the Unabomber paid a visit to the Hoover building last night."

"In the form of Fox Mulder?"

"How did you know?"

John shrugged. "I heard it from one of the secretaries. Reliving the glory days of her youth and wondering what she ever saw in him." He waggled his eyebrows suggestively. "It would seen the beard is not a flattering addition."

Monica laughed. "Word spreads quickly through these halls then. Did you catch wind of what he was doing here? Or how they even _got_ him here?"

John shook his head. "Nothing outside the jokes that aliens dropped him off on the roof. This is shaping up to be a regular X-file."

"_We _can't even trust the Bureau, how did they manage to convince either of them?"

"I've been askin' myself the same thing all morning," he said, glancing over where more people were now joining Chuck and Peter's circle. Whispers of the name Spooky were slowing wending their way through the room. Suspicious eyes turned to John and Monica slowly as word spread that they had spent time in the basement several years before. It had only been a matter of time.

"You guys worked with Spooky, didn't you?" another one of the older agents asked.

"Er, no," John stumbled as Monica shook her head.

"I could have sworn you transferred from the basement up here," he continued. "And Whitney came to speak to you the other day."

"She asked about the case," Monica agreed carefully. "She was trying to get an opinion from someone who had worked on the X-files. It's not our case to discuss."

"Well, you got any idea why Fox Mulder was here last night?"

John and Monica made a show of exchanging clueless glances before shrugging.

"Nope," Monica said. "Sorry." Her eyes caught a flash of auburn hair moving across the far side of the room, and watched as Walter Skinner's secretary threaded her way through the closely packed desks. She held a piece of folded white paper in her hand tightly, the look on her face saying her life depended on delivering this paper to its recipients. Their bluff was about to be called. Kim handed Monica the sheet of paper.

"The assistant director would like to see you both in his office."

Monica opened the sheet, noticing Scully's precise signature sitting on one of the lines across the bottom of the paper. Her eyes swept up to the top where Skinner had written in red ink. _This was on my desk this morning. –A.D. Skinner_. Monica scanned the body of the paper over the words "all parties involved are granted pardon," highlighted in yellow.


End file.
